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> On top of that they have a horrendous site and shopping experience. That people choose to go to amazon is beyond me. Don't you have other options? Oh boy, be

> On top of that they have a horrendous site and shopping experience. That people choose to go to amazon is beyond me. Don't you have other options? Oh boy, be glad you don't have to shop online in Japan. Compared to that Amazon is the pinnacle of user experience. Recently I wanted to buy an 4090 from a Japanese shop, and I had to go through *six* online shops to buy one. And it's not because it was out of stock, oh no, but because of various bullshit reasons which prevented me from buying one. Some of the issues that are common in Japanese e-commerce (I've experienced all of these myself, and I don't shop much): - A lot of shops don't accept debit/credit cards. - Shops that accept a debit/credit card often will accept your order, reserve the money (so it's not a technical limitation), but the very next day cancel your order with a message "sorry, your card was issued overseas; your order is now cancelled, try again with a Japanese issued card" - Shops that require you to verify through your phone to make an account (which is required to buy anything). You give them your phone, and they *call* you. You then have to pick it up, the call disconnects, then they send you an SMS with a code, which you type into the website to register the account. If you miss the initial automated call you have to wait 15 minutes. - You get automatically subscribed to a spammy newsletter (up to THREE EMAILS A DAY) once you register an account. - There's no "unsubscibe" link in the spammy newsletter emails. - You need to fill out a form to unsubscribe from it, and it's not automatic. - Even if you fill out a form it might not unsubscribe you anyway. (It's possible they're doing the unsubscribing manually.) - If you delete an account the spammy newsletter still keeps on coming, but now there's no way to unsubscribe from it. - If the name on your account doesn't exactly match the name on your card they won't accept it (because the name on the card includes your middle name, and that's too long to even type it into the form on the site). - Cancelling an order doesn't actually unreserve/unblock the money they reserved, so if you tried to buy something expensive (say, an 4090 for $2000) and your order got cancelled then you need to wait for a month before that money is automatically unblocked and you can actually use it again. (Although I'm sure you could probably call the CC company's support to get it fixed on your side.) So, no, even though I really don't want to give any extra money to Bezos the thing is that shopping through Amazon just works. I click on the item I want, I click order, and that's it. I get charged and a day or two later it comes to my doorstep. No bullshit.

thrdbndndn 4y ago
To be fair, it's not that bad if you live in Japan (by that I mean you have a Japanese credit card and phone number). I've encountered all the things you said (for "don't accept cards" though, I haven't seen one since forever. Could you name one?), but it's in the minority. I have like 90% success rate even when I was buying from the US using a US credit card. And I buy from Japan a lot. I don't blame them for not allowing oversea cards, either: credit card fraud is really rampant.
- kouteiheika 4y ago
  > for "don't accept cards" though, I haven't seen one since forever. Could you name one? I don't really remember, but basically I just went on Kakaku, searched for the 4090, and just went through the list trying to order an 4090 going through each shop and moving on to the next when it proved impossible to actually make an order. A nice hack for some of the shops from which it's normally impossible to buy from but which support Amazon Pay is to just use Amazon Pay; if you pay through that none of the usual card-related bullshit applies (suddenly you can use a card that was issued overseas, the name doesn't have to match exactly, etc.).
marak830 4y ago
Try dospara, although I have had my account for over 10 years, I don't remember any issues like that with them.
fomine3 4y ago
It's sorry that Japan society isn't good for foreigners, but Japanese online shops are fine for me (native Japanese), except annoying newsletters you point out. Also cheapest kakaku shops may be nervous about avoiding cc fraud, and 4090 is very expensive and easy to exchange to cash, so it would be worst experience. I've never had received phone calls from shop, but it looks reasonable to verify 300kJPY bought from newcomer.
midoridensha 4y ago
The big thing you left out here was Amazon's relatively-easy returns process and policy. Japanese retailers are not known for easy returns at all. The credit-card thing though makes some sense as others have said. If you live in Japan, you really should have a Japanese-issued credit card. It makes life a lot easier.

thrdbndndn 4y ago

To be fair, it's not that bad if you live in Japan (by that I mean you have a Japanese credit card and phone number). I've encountered all the things you said (for "don't accept cards" though, I haven't seen one since forever. Could you name one?), but it's in the minority. I have like 90% success rate even when I was buying from the US using a US credit card. And I buy from Japan a lot. I don't blame them for not allowing oversea cards, either: credit card fraud is really rampant.

kouteiheika 4y ago
> for "don't accept cards" though, I haven't seen one since forever. Could you name one? I don't really remember, but basically I just went on Kakaku, searched for the 4090, and just went through the list trying to order an 4090 going through each shop and moving on to the next when it proved impossible to actually make an order. A nice hack for some of the shops from which it's normally impossible to buy from but which support Amazon Pay is to just use Amazon Pay; if you pay through that none of the usual card-related bullshit applies (suddenly you can use a card that was issued overseas, the name doesn't have to match exactly, etc.).

marak830 4y ago

Try dospara, although I have had my account for over 10 years, I don't remember any issues like that with them.

fomine3 4y ago

It's sorry that Japan society isn't good for foreigners, but Japanese online shops are fine for me (native Japanese), except annoying newsletters you point out. Also cheapest kakaku shops may be nervous about avoiding cc fraud, and 4090 is very expensive and easy to exchange to cash, so it would be worst experience. I've never had received phone calls from shop, but it looks reasonable to verify 300kJPY bought from newcomer.

midoridensha 4y ago

The big thing you left out here was Amazon's relatively-easy returns process and policy. Japanese retailers are not known for easy returns at all. The credit-card thing though makes some sense as others have said. If you live in Japan, you really should have a Japanese-issued credit card. It makes life a lot easier.